Transformers is too big a film franchise to just go away now that Michael Bay has done his three films. The director says he’s gone. Shia LaBeoufsays he’s done. (“I’m sure they’ll make more of them, it’s still a very hot franchise, there’s still value in it. I think people will still go to see it. I just don’t know if I have anything to contribute.”) So what next? Given the way we know things are likely to happen with a series like Batman, one obvious supposition is: reboot. But that evidently isn’t in the cards, either, at least not now.

One of the producers of the franchise is definitively crossing reboot off the list of options for the series. What really happens next isn’t exactly clear, however.

What happens next? Certainly not a reboot. We haven’t lost the Transformers. They didn’t grow up or become expensive like Toby Maguire. I don’t know what happens next. I’m pretty sure there will be a second trilogy. I am pretty sure it will kick ass. And I am pretty sure some of you will hate it because it wasn’t all bots.

There’s a lot of supposition in there, but ‘certainly not a reboot’ is reassuring if only for the fact that the reboot seems like a silly way to continue a franchise, especially one as independent of important characters as Transformers. As long as the robots are there, it will work.

And what of that rumor that Jason Statham is being eyed as the new star of future films? Still nothing more than a rumor. [via TFW2005]